From the comments: "He's just a guy who knows a bit of PHP and wanted to get rich, along with the creators of 1000 other social networking sites, and just got lucky that his went viral."
It's amazing how easy it is to dismiss other people's accomplishments. Notice how "Knew a little bit of PHP and got lucky" is used to represent years of hard work, business and development wise.
You must have never run a business if you think that Zuckerberg's success came easy and was due to sheer luck.
I've seen a lot of coverage of Zuck as a "genius computer hacker", reinforced by the Hackers-style montage in the film which makes it look like what he did was really hard (oh no, he busted out emacs! He must be a genius!).
Actually, Facebook's core functionality, at least at small scale, is trivial. It's a database of people, with CRUD on top. All the really hard technical problems Facebook has solved -- and there were many, don't get me wrong -- have to do with scaling that system, and those problems were solved long after Zuck was no longer hands-on with the code every day.
That's not to say I don't think Zuck is really smart. What I think he's really smart at, though, is interface design and user experience. The film touches on this, noting that Facebook's exclusivity was key to its early popularity. However, the reason Facebook really trounced Friendster and MySpace was that it was a much, much better experience. Everything worked perfectly and each screen was carefully thought-out in terms of information density and placement.
Of course, Sorkin's narrative for the film is that Zuck is an aspie geek who built a website because he doesn't understand people, so the counter-evidence -- that Facebook's design is clearly built by somebody who understands people very well indeed -- has to be downplayed.
What? Where does he discuss this? He's talking about designing a user experience as if there's no managerial aspect involved in that at all. I can find no reference to the difficulty of running a company that actually can deliver that solid Facebook user experience. Not that he doesn't think this is hard; it's that he doesn't mention it.
It's not as though being the Harvard kid writing the first version of thefacebook.com is the same as running a large company; as if Zuckerberg can just hire people to do hard coding for him and that's the end of it. I thought I'd point out that building Facebook as a company is something that would have been, and is, hard. The inability to grow has killed promising web businesses.
I don't understand why I'm being downvoted and you're being upvoted.
Addendum: the downvotes continue. Someone explain what I'm missing, please.
> "have to do with scaling that system, and those problems were solved long after Zuck was no longer hands-on with the code every day."
seldo covers this in his original post. The assertion (correct or otherwise) is that the difficult parts of scaling Facebook occurred after Zuck stopped working on the code himself.
I concur with you. I don't understand why folks must criticize or demean Zuck. What exactly are these people criticizing him for? That he did not solve the biggest scaling problems and instead let his employees do that(ever wonder how they attracted those employees in first place)? That he did not write every line of code(where would Facebook even be if Zuck insisted on writing code himself)? That all he's got is a site with 500M users and a shit load of revenue(raise your hand if you got a site with .0001% of that)?
Good god it is outrightly ridiculous. Yes, I am a Zuck fanboy. At least I can admit it and cite a few reasons why. All I keep hearing from the other side is "omg all he's got is a freakin php site". Yeah, that's why he is a billionaire and you are not.
People keep saying "all Zuck did was scale". DOH! Scaling is what separates McDonalds from your local burger joint and facebook from millions of other php sites. If scaling is all Zuckerberg has done, good for him! That is all he should be doing.
> That he did not solve the biggest scaling problems and instead let
> his employees do that(ever wonder how they attracted those
> employees in first place)?
I think that Seldo was contradicting the popular image that since Zuckerberg built some 'tech thing' and that it's really successful that he's some sort of 'genius hacker.' This is completely different from the sentiment that Zuckerberg is some sort of 'chump that just got lucky.'
Personally, I think the idea that he is some sort of 'hacker genius' stems from the fact that the vast majority of the people that use Facebook, are probably the same type of people that thought I was a 'hacker genius' for showing them how to change their wallpaper or use Alt-Tab to switch between windows.
It comes down to some equation like:
do something related to X + gain success/fame/money = genius at X
Whereas that's not necessarily the case. You wouldn't put the person that developed Netflix's recommendation algorithm up with Einstein or Euler, but that's not to say that he/she isn't smart or 'just got lucky.'
Other people posts here seem to just be related to fighting the assertion that Zuckerberg gave Facebook success due to some genius piece of code. This assertion detracts from all of the rest of the stuff that made Facebook a success (business decisions, etc), any one of which had the potential to sink Facebook.
tl;dr Zuckerberg did a lot of things and made Facebook through a lot of hard work, but the moniker 'genius hacker' is not fitting. That is not a criticism of Zuckerberg so much as it is a criticism of the MSM (or just people in general) trying to boil the success of Facebook down to a single thing (the code) and claim that Zuckerberg's success must make him a genius at the one thing.
It's more jealousy than anything. People hate the fact that someone their age or younger is living the dream -- Ivy League education, explosive traction, rapid growth, investors at your feet, multimillionaire, all during your 20's.
That said, I can't see anybody in this thread being jealous or criticizing Zuckerberg. People are merely stating that his accomplishments do not automatically make him a "genius hacker" just because his very successful business happens to have to do with "computers".
have to do with scaling that system, and those problems were solved long after Zuck was no longer hands-on with the code every day
seldo was referring to scaling the software system, not the business. cynicalkane is making a valid point here: that Zuckerberg was not only faced with the technical problems of scaling a popular website, but also with those of managing a fast growing company.
That's really not the point I was making at all, although it's nice of you to say so :-)
Scaling the business side is definitely another strength of Mark's, but I don't think it was a contributor to their early success -- certainly not the first six months covered in the movie, where it appears Parker was the one who knew how to get deals done. Of course, the movie is fiction, so who knows really?
Isn't the main reason that Facebook is winning that they are really, really aggressive about making people invite their friends? MySpace also grew by getting access to people's Inbox and spamming their contacts, but FB might have taken it to the next level.
I hardly ever log into, but FB seems extremely pushy to me. They constantly push people at me who might be my friends. Either I could invite them, or I could make them use FB more by befriending them.
Facebook is just a more subtle version of Farmville in that respect...
Facebook has only been around for 6 years. The first investment of a half million dollars was made 6 months after the site had launched. I'm not diminishing Zuckerberg's insight or hard work but anything that takes off that fast involves a lot of luck.
Even though Facebook has only been around for 6 years, don't forget the years of him working on programming.
If an engineer who has worked for several years on the field, but finally gets a big project that's completed in a year, you don't throw away his previous experience and say that he's just a lucky guy who landed a big job. It's the sum of all the work before that adds up to the current experience now.
Only if you assume there are few others who haved worked for several years on the field. If that's not the case, then you have to attribute at least some of the success to luck.
> I'm not diminishing Zuckerberg's insight or hard work but anything that takes off that fast involves a lot of luck.
"take off fast" does not require luck. Yes, being lucky can result in take off fast, but there are things that took off fast that didn't involve luck. (Unless you think that "right place, right time, right thing" is an instance of luck, that is, happenstance.)
You are right, he certainly is extremely talented and intelligent, but I would argue that the genius label is misused here. It seems that mainstream media's tendency nowadays is to label every highly successful business founder as a "genius". In my opinion, Einsteins and Mozarts are geniuses and are much less common than people who build successful businesses.
That being said, I think there is absolutely no reason to dismiss what Zuckerberg did or claim that it was all luck. Just don't fall into sensationalism and call him a genius.
I prefer to label successful businessmen as socially or emotionally intelligent. Building a business requires many things, but the type of "genius" that we got from great physicists and artists is certainly not analogous to bringing people together and making money. It's a different measure of intelligence, but one that I think is more able to be learned than a gift for the natural sciences.
Well - usually this is the case. You see - society indeed tends to call successful people geniuses.
The others get to be called "autistic savants".
/sarcasm
Some say that Edison was not a genius, and that Ford was not a genius, etc...
Myself - I'm chock full sick of "geniuses" who would of made it if they would of made it. Thus I'd be way more inclined to root for the Zuck than for the mass of people that claim that he fracked them over.
Rooting for the underdog might be "noble". But lets face it - most of the underdogs don't deserve to win.
We agree that genius !=> success, but I don't think success => genius holds, either. Not everybody who is successful is a genius. Unless we allow some inflation of the use of the word.
Known genii (?) include Einstein, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Jimi Hendrix...
What do you think P[genius|success]/P[genius] is? (i.e., how much more likely do you think it is that someone is a genius given that you know they are a success?)
I didn't say that success is sufficient precondition to be perceived as genius. What I tried to imply was that success is necessary precondition to be pronounced as one (by society).
Or it is just random chance. Out of 1 million people trying different things, a few are bound to be successful. At least for stock trading that is assumed to be true.
As someone said on another story about Zuckerberg, if a person can go from $0 to having a net worth of over $6.9 billion then they are most definitely a genius.
Who are you talking about? Zuckerberg was born to what many would consider rich parents, went to an Ivy school. This isn't a rags-to-riches story it's a story of someone given literally every opportunity to succeed and doing so. But not without crossing some moral boundaries.
..except that he didn't. What he actually wrote was (one translation):
"Behind a great success for which there is no obvious source is a crime that has never been discovered, because it was properly executed."
Bear in mind this is a translation from 19th century french to modern english, so there's a lot of wiggle room for getting different meanings.
The common, shorter version that is bandied about on the internet drops the important qualifier "success which there is no obvious source for" - in other words, there's only a crime behind a success that has no apparent reason.
Also keep in context that this was written ~7 years before the French revolution, about French society. People should keep that in mind when applying that to modern situations.
In Facebook's example, I'm sure most will agree the reason for the success is pretty apparent, and thus no 'great crime' was committed.
well, nitpick comments usually tend to get downvoted but this is one of those examples where I thought people would be genuinely interested in the background. It's not intended to be a putdown, more of a 'did you know...'
I could fill a whole website with mis-attributed, mistranslated and misrepresented popular quotes. Poor old Einstein has got a lot floating around that he never said.
Wealth does not imply intelligence. Some people are at the right place at the right time. People who win the lottery aren't usually geniuses.
I'm not saying intelligence didn't help Zuckerberg, I just disagree that wealth=intelligence. There are plenty of poor geniuses out there, like Grigori Perelman who solved the topological conundrum.
Comparing winning the lottery to creating a social phenomenon on the scale of Facebook is pretty ridiculous. I'm not sure why people are so against giving this guy his due credit, but I find it very discomforting as an aspiring entrepreneur. I can see how some people could not enjoy Zuckerberg's personality, but that should be separated from what he has created.
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."
Probably the reason people are against "giving this guy his due credit" is because he seems to have screwed over and betrayed several people to get what he wants. If you don't do that then you wont run into the "problems" [1] he's having.
[1] I say "problems" because it's irrelevant. I'm sure he's crying his way to the bank because of all the hate he gets.
All I am pointing out is that wealth does not equate intelligence. There are many many intelligent people who do not end up rich. I didn't say Zuck isn't intelligent, I just think that it's only one piece to the puzzle--timing being another crucial aspect, and yes luck in the sense that FB took off virally. I didn't bring up his personality at all so I don't know what you're responding to.
Look at Tesla, he died poor, in debt, and not very well respected. Only now is Tesla regarded as the genius that he was. Neither, Einstein or Edison died wealthy.There are many more examples (Socrates, Oscar Wilde, John Milton) I can go on if needed. Not to mention all the unintelligent wealthy people: Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, etc.
Most things come down to luck, both bad a good. One developing a terminal disease and one winning the lottery are both an instance of chance (luck).
To say that Zuckerberg got to where he is purely because of luck is as equally false as saying that luck has nothing to do with it. I think the real issue that people are arguing about is, colloquially, whether the success is "deserved". You have people who look at the circumstances and assert that "given the opportunity I could have done the same thing", to them - it is an instance of luck, and undeserved success.
To others, they perhaps are recognizing that more went on beneath the surface that we know about - perhaps even though technically what went on is nothing special, there may be other factors in play that only a select few would be able to surmount.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but the digestion of the circumstances will vary from person to person. There exist many people who could have made "Facebook" and been equally successful; there exist MANY more people who would not have been able to.
I think that the polarization of responses has a lot to do the framing in absolute terms. Whatever attributions that are ascribed to him, cannot be said to viewed with equal validity for all observers.
Basically, older folk think the thing is a hatchet job on Mark Zuckerberg, and that he comes across as a tragic figure. Younger folk seem to think of Zuck as a hero, who pulled off world-changing accomplishments despite rich idiots trying to bring him down.
I think the difference is not actually "old" and "young", but "technical" and "nontechnical". People who like technology and understand it (this does not include Aaron Sorkin) are awed by Zuck's accomplishments, while those who do not understand how hard it was instead focus on his personal failures. Adams, who is in his 50s but firmly understands technology, reinforces this view.
Absolutely - I came out of the movie thinking it was one big puff-piece to Zuck and Parker's accomplishments, and wondered what the rationale was for slamming Eduardo so badly. My actual thinking was "No way was Eduardo that lame in reality".
I was amazed to find out that some viewers came out of the movie believing that Zuck had been portrayed in a negative light - I was almost wondering if we had seen the same movie.
I think it's not actually so much technical vs non-technical, as it is awareness of what it takes to build a company from scratch. I've been in the valley for 14 years, and I can share _dozens_ of stories where world-class engineering teams put their sweat, blood, and tears in 80 Hour work weeks for 5 solid years and came out with absolutely nothing (monetarily) to show for their effort beyond a salary. Watching Sean and Mark pivot on _precisely_ the correct elements, while Eduardo fumbled, or otherwise disengaged, just emphasized how important constant flawless tactical AND strategic execution are.
Not sure that I buy into the "technical" and "nontechnical" argument. I'm middle aged and technical and while I -respect- Zuck's accomplishments, I can definitely say there's no hero worship involved.
The focus on his personal failures is to be expected, and it has little to do with age or technical awareness. Zuck is at the top of his field, so everyone loves a bit of schadenfreude when it presents itself.
I remember that people used to get their hate on for Marc Andreesen once upon a time.
people used to get their hate on for Marc Andreesen
Now that you mention it I remember that too. How perceptive of you to note the similarity. In both cases, garden-variety schadenfreude was multiplied by their massive success.
Incidentally, not one of the successful people I've known thinks this way.
The one thing I really appreciated about the movie was the accuracy of the computer monitor shots and dialogue about servers/hacking. While pretty basic Apache config stuff, It's nice to see a respect for the technology.
Indeed. There was something wonderful about seeing not just real desktop shots, but desktop shots with the correct contemporary hardware and software. Mozilla-the-app, Emacs 19, thick crappy Dells. Just a nice break from Hollywood effects.
One thing I really liked was that the purchase price for the domain on Network Solutions was historically accurate - back then they were still charging $34 for a .com domain..
Wow. I naturally expected the title of that blog to be tongue-in-cheek.
I was actively avoiding paying to see that movie as I feared it would be another Hollywood over-dramatisation of an actual event but based on the emphasis Scott placed on the quality behind this movie, I may just change my mind!
It's certainly not 100% accurate, and I don't think it's trying to be. It glosses over some major aspects of Facebook's history (like Zuckerberg's friendship with Graham, the heavy focus on Wirehog, the importance of Dustin Moskowitz, and so on), it compresses a lot of events into a shorter timespan than they occurred in real life (Facemash, renaming from Thefacebook to Facebook, the excising of Saverin from the company, the acquisition of VC, the move to real offices), and it fabricates a bit wholesale (it plays up one of Zuckerberg's ex-girlfriends, making it seem as if she was his only one; portrays Zuckerberg as having heavy asperger syndrome; implies that all of Facebook's funds came from Saverin; pretends Facebook was started because Zuckerberg wanted into Harvard's Final Clubs, etc.). That's true.
But it's not about vilifying Facebook; the dramatic license was taken to be dramatic, not to make some point about Zuckerberg or Facebook. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a total genius; his role as CEO is respected; he is not portrayed as having ripped off the idea for Facebook from the Winklevoss twins, and while he does ultimately screw over Saverin, the movie goes to pains to make it clear that it had to happen for the success of the company. At the risk of sounding a bit truthy, I think that the movie did a superb job capturing the feel of a startup in Facebook's situation, even if some of the facts are slightly off.
While I think this review is slightly hyperbolic, I don't think it's crazy, either. The movie was insanely well-done from start to finish, and I don't honestly think that the creative license is much worse than, say, Apollo 13. I think if you were expecting to see geeks get vilified, you'll be very pleasantly surprised.
Reading this I think that, actually, he likes this film not because it is a brilliant topic or for the fact it is about Facebook - but because it is extremely well written and realistic.
I agree entirely with his gripe that such a thing is unusual for "big" modern films.
> Normally the writer's craft is so obvious that it buries the art. When the art buries the craft, you have something special.
This kind of formulation is upsetting because art and craft are the same thing (in many languages they're the same word, too). If you can't see the "art" "behind" the craft, then the craft is poor. The whole purpose of craft is to hide itself.
Now, the craft is usually so poor that we made a whole other concept for "good craft", and that is "art".
It wouldn't be a problem if "art" was just a shorthand for "good craft", but then it took a life of its own, and became associated with miracles, "gift of God".
- - -
That said, to me, "the best movie I've ever seen" is A Few Good Men, by the same Sorkin. I can't wait to see this one!
That is what the word art came to mean post-Romanticism. Pre-Romanticism, the distinction was made between art (craft/skill) and genius (inspiration). See Critical Theory Since Plato if you're interested in reading how past thinkers approached artistic creation.
You can't express yourself if your skills are poor.
You're right that someone who has nothing to say will create artifacts of low value; but I would argue that expression is a function of one's mastery of the craft.
There is a recurring theme in PG's essays about how computer languages affect how you think and therefore, what you can say using them. This is also a common theme in the "suits vs. geeks" debate; if you can't code, how can you imagine what code can do?
In general the (philosophical) jury's still out on whether language predates thinking or the other way around; but it's a fact that all great "artists" produce their best work after many many years of practicing and perfecting their craft.
> You can't express yourself if your skills are poor.
Bob Dylan is not a very skillful singer, and he is far from the best guitar player (especially early on, when he used very few chords). The same can be said of Johnny Cash. Yet they both expressed themselves very well, and their art was good enough to propel them to stardom.
A friend the other day called it "The Godfather of our generation". I don't really get how they got that out of it.
I came out of the theater kind of depressed. And worrying a lot about lawyers. I've always wondered what it feels like to be someone who works in a hospital and then comes home to watch a hospital drama on TV. Now I know. Its kind of weird.
You almost get the impression that the author has just never seen a good movie before. Almost everything he said could be applied to any top film maker. Coens, PT Anderson, Wes Anderson, lots of others. If all you've seen are summer blockbusters I can see how you might be wowed by good writing and lack of special effects.
Sorkin's good for sure, sometimes really good, but he too has his weaknesses. For instance the fact that every character has the diction of a Harvard English professor and the wit of George Bernard Shaw.
he too has his weaknesses. For instance the fact that every character has the diction of a Harvard English professor and the wit of George Bernard Shaw.
Is that really a weakness? Strict realism in dialogue generally makes for pretty poor drama. Shakespeare's characters talk like nobody has ever talked, but his plays would not be improved by sticking in a bunch of "umm"s and "ahh"s and repetition and "y'know" and repetition and, uhh, stuff like that, y'know?
Yes and no I suppose. When it's unrelenting, ubiquitous (politicians and waiters) and in everything he ever composes, I'd consider it a weakness.
Of course you don't expect anyone to talk exactly as people do, with umms and ahs and all that. But Steinbeck and Hemingway (and in film, most of the people I mentioned in my original post) prove that you can write great drama and dialogue with a good degree of realism.
Good point but to nitpick the analogy-- Shakespeare's dialogue is actually quite varied. Consider the exchange between Hamlet and Osric, for example. Hamlet mocks him mercilessly for trying to use big words. Contrast Hamlet's tasteful, intelligent, and poetic use of language vs. Polonius's elaborate, convoluted phrases. Even the two gravediggers-- one is clever the other is a bit slow.
I just don't like the contrived marketing of the film. People should be able to draw their own conclusions from the characters. Instead the conclusions are shoved down their throats "punk, genius, billionaire."
Honestly, I didn't find anything "punk" about the film nor do I think he was a genius.
The lottery is proof that millions of dollars doesn't make you smarter.
I agree. (all these observations are about movie Zuck, not real Zuck)
He's not a punk, me's more like someone who has been bullied, pushed around, and ignored his whole life and he's not going to take it anymore.
He might be a genius, but that's not what's special about him. It's his determination to succeed at any cost. Lots of 19 year olds are geniuses, but most know when to quit.
Sure he's a billionaire, but there was only one line in the movie where that was even relevant (An extremely juicy line, I might add). He was after power, success, and influence much more than he was about money.
I couldn't decide if the movie portrayed him as a sympathetic villain or a tragic hero. Probably more like a real life complicated person going through an amazing journey.
I couldn't decide if the movie portrayed him as a sympathetic villain or a tragic hero. Probably more like a real life complicated person going through an amazing journey.
I liked that too. A lot of the dynamics and relationships weren't very black and white at all, which made it that much more engaging and realistic.
I haven't seen The Social Network. I'm fully willing to believe that it is a fantastic movie, and, just based on collateral evidence, I'd even put some money down on Sorkin doing well in the Academy Awards. I will probably see it very soon.
Nevertheless, I still think that this post is mostly evidence that Scott Adams hasn't watched a lot of classic movies that have stood the test of time. To state that The Social Network stands with the greatest movies of all time (as Adams' statement could have meant if he'd seen a lot of them) is one thing, but I take it as pretty unlikely that it surpasses the whole field. Unless, of course, the "whole field" he's implying it compares to is pretty small.
So, cool, I'm glad he liked it. I'm also not sure what knowing his opinion earned me.
He basically says that it's old media (Sorkin and Hollywood) casting new media (Zuckerberg) in a bad light, compared to the good guys - the honorable and respectable lawyers (of all people).
The real point of Facebook's success according to Lessig:
"Instead, what’s important here is that Zuckerberg’s genius could be embraced by half-a-billion people within six years of its first being launched, without (and here is the critical bit) asking permission of anyone. The real story is not the invention. It is the platform that makes the invention sing."
It's just a movie trying to cash-in on a facebook phenomenon. Guy made a website that was popular among a certain clique and spread out like a wildfire. There's nothing genius about his "hacking" abilities (I'm pretty allergic to what is stuffed into that term on this site)... he made LOTS of money, geek with money - tension, drama. the end.
I don't get it what is there more to it, except for the fact that most of the people here would like to be that guy, because they are trying to enter the tangential business space he is in.
(Note: I haven't seen The Social Network and I don't mean to imply that it is comparable to the iconic movies I have listed above. That said, the more reviews I see trickling in, the more it seems like it.)
IMO, Facebook did well for two reasons, brand recognition and phased roll-out.
After it started taking off at Harvard, you had the Harvard brand, which is a pretty big deal, to encourage uptake at other colleges. By going college by college, critical mass was easier to achieve, as it didn't need a lot of people, it just needed a lot of people at your particular college, to encourage the non-early-adopters to join in. By the time it was actually competing with MySpace, etc, for non college users, it already had a sizable user group in the key demographic, and as I recall, the "started at harvard" branding was still to be heard.
Social network has superior directing and writing IMO. But they are similar in many respects.
PoSV simply tells the story in a pretty straightforward way, while TSN is structured more as a search for the true story. It's structured as a bunch of flashbacks from the depositions of Mark, Eduardo, and the Winklevoss twins. Each party tells their version of things, and as a character says at one point, 15% of typical testimony is lies, the remaining 85% is exaggerated.
The movie doesn't try to take sides, and leaves it up to the viewer to decide who was right and wrong (if anyone.)
Nearly all of the technical merits (writing, acting, production values) are better with The Social Network, though the leads in Pirates do well. Pirates tells a much broader story, and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates make more interesting characters. (Woz and Paul Allen are played straightforwardly, and Ballmer is recognizably Ballmer.)
It's quite notable that Pirates tells a broader and more interesting story than The Social Network despite The Social Network being far more fictionalized.
If you're looking for parallels to contemporary startups, The Social Network is a bit more on point--Pirates goes farther back into the founders' backgrounds and forward into the lives of Apple and Microsoft as established companies. But both are still great.
I don't really see how that could be. Zuck was using emacs, wget, and PHP is plausible ways to accomplish things that a tech-savvy viewer would see as realistic. In Swordfish, Jobson was visually programming a "hydra" matrix-textured rubiks cube and dropping "logic bombs" into the DoD web login forms.
It's amazing how easy it is to dismiss other people's accomplishments. Notice how "Knew a little bit of PHP and got lucky" is used to represent years of hard work, business and development wise.
You must have never run a business if you think that Zuckerberg's success came easy and was due to sheer luck.